


Weight Off Your Chest

by RisuAlto



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Canon-Typical Zelos Angst, Fluff, I promise, Introspection, M/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Pre-Slash, References to Depression, Wings, Zelos's Route, but they're definitely in love, it's mostly fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:14:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25644877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisuAlto/pseuds/RisuAlto
Summary: It had taken Lloyd two weeks—two entire weeks—to be able to manifest his wings at will.  But that wasn't good enough.  So, here Zelos was, awake far too early for any rational person, in a cold, wide open field, utterly failing to explain to Lloyd how to…fly.
Relationships: Lloyd Irving/Zelos Wilder
Comments: 16
Kudos: 42





	Weight Off Your Chest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maskedhero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maskedhero/gifts).



> I'm sorry this is so late. I'm also sorry that I'm bad at writing humor, so you ended up with introspective fluff instead. I hope you like it <3
> 
> Big shoutout to the Zelloyd discord server for motivating me to actually finish something after not writing for months.

It had taken Lloyd two weeks—two _entire_ weeks—to be able to manifest his wings at will. Zelos supposed that this was just an unfortunate side effect of having the wings suddenly appear instead of being carefully bestowed into a cultivated vessel by an angel, but it was still baffling to him. Making his wings visible and then invisible again was like raising an arm or a leg.

And it had taken Lloyd two weeks to learn how to do it, even with help from not just Zelos, but also Colette and Raine (who had no experience with wings of her own but was pretty good at explaining things that Zelos and Colette had a hard time trying to verbalize beyond vague gestures and metaphors). The end result had been that Lloyd was able to keep his wings incorporeal without having to consciously think about it, thereby sparing both hapless passersby and random household objects from being suddenly struck to the ground by uncontrolled ethereal feathers. So, it was _enough_.

It was not, however, good enough for Lloyd. So, here Zelos was, awake far too early for any rational person, in a cold, wide open field, utterly failing to explain to Lloyd how to…fly.

Well, no, that wasn’t true—Zelos was doing a fine job of explaining it. It just wasn’t getting through Lloyd’s thick skull.

“It’s just—they’re like having another arm, or a leg, bud,” he said, running a hand through his hair. Noishe barked approvingly nearby. However, Lloyd still looked as lost and frustrated as before. Zelos sighed. “Okay, close your eyes.”

“How’s _that_ supposed to help?” Lloyd asked, but he did as asked (almost immediately, and it didn’t matter how many times Lloyd just _did_ stuff like that when the trust was a rush of euphoria, sweet and soothing as a gel). “Seriously, Zelos.”

Zelos stepped around Lloyd (and Noishe), not bothering to hide his footsteps so that the other knew where he was. “Ah-ah, I know what I’m doing,” he said as he ducked under Lloyd’s left wing to get behind him. Despite his words, however, it took him a moment to actually act once he was there.

Most people who saw Lloyd would think his wings didn’t match him. The pale, icy blue color and the way the feathers were birdlike, small, delicate, none of that matched up with the bright, warm, direct-to-a-fault young man that everyone who ever met Lloyd knew him to be. But Zelos knew their appearance wasn’t false. It was just deeper. Lloyd could be remarkably clever, even subtle, if he needed it. He could be gentle and calm in the face of things that would otherwise break people. Not always, of course, but the _possibility_ was there! But the thing about Lloyd’s wings that Zelos thought were the most like him was that while the feathers were individually small—sharp, but useless—they came together to form an unassumingly powerful whole. Something greater than they appeared to be.

So, yes, Zelos thought Lloyd’s wings suited him just fine.

“What are you _doing,_ Zel—” Lloyd glanced over his shoulder, eyes open now, and Zelos startled back to reality.

“Lloyd!” he scolded cheerfully, taking Lloyd’s head between his hands and turning it so that Lloyd was looking forward again. “You can’t rush the Great Zelos, you know! Eyes closed.”

Lloyd _hmphed._ “Fine,” he said, and Zelos was sure he wasn’t looking.

A little sigh escaped his lips as he let go of Lloyd and leaned back, carefully studying the structure of the spectral bones in Lloyd’s wings. Neither Zelos nor Colette had anything like this; their wings were just a collection of elegant shapes for feathers, strung together by invisible threads of “divine” magic, that tended to act as though they were connected. For Lloyd, some of that magic was visible, and it resembled the bony structure of real wings. Kind of.

“Okay, fold your wings,” Zelos said. “Don’t make them disappear, just fold ‘em close to your back.”

“Like this?”

“Yeah.” Zelos reached forward, very carefully putting his hands in the narrow space between Lloyd’s back and his wings, then _gently_ pulled. The mass of mana—still weird, to reach out and be able to _hold_ magic—followed without too much resistance until Lloyd’s wings were no longer parallel to the plane of his back, but not pulled straight out behind him either. “Hey, don’t look!” he said when he noticed Lloyd starting to turn again.

Lloyd sighed and faced forward.

“Okay. Now tell me where your wings are,” he said.

“I dunno,” Lloyd said, shrugging, and his wings seemed to unwittingly move with the motion against Zelos’s fingers. “You moved them…away from my back.”

“Good~” Zelos sang. Then, before he could open his eyes and turn around, asked, “How far?”

Lloyd’s face wasn’t quite visible to Zelos at the moment, but he was pretty sure Lloyd was scrunching his brow. “Hmm…a little. They’re closer to each other. Like halfway from my back and halfway to each other,” Lloyd said.

“There you go,” Zelos said, letting go. “You can open your eyes now, by the way.” Lloyd did, turning to face Zelos, who crossed his arms.

“What was that supposed to do, anyway?” he asked.

Zelos gestured to his wings. “You can feel where parts of your body are, even if you can’t see them. It works for your wings, too!” he said. “You should be able to move your wings the same way you move your arms if you just think about it, like when you folded them up. Just…more back and forth, pushing the air around.”

Surprisingly, Lloyd seemed to listen rather than arguing, the expression on his face suggesting that he was taking this extremely seriously. Pride welled up in Zelos as he watched and waited.

He waited, and nothing happened. Lloyd’s face scrunched in frustration for a moment before he sighed. “This isn’t working,” he said petulantly.

“I dunno how else to explain it to you, bud,” Zelos said. “How do you, I dunno, teach a baby how to wave its arms around?”

“Are you calling me a baby?” Lloyd asked, stepping closer.

Zelos waved a hand nonchalantly. “A baby fake- _angel-_ thing, not a baby human,” he said, then smiled with a sharp, gleaming edge. “But yes.”

“Ugh!” Lloyd threw his arms into the air. “Zelos, you—”

For a second, it seemed like he was going to let himself get frustrated with the teasing (Zelos wasn’t even flirting this time!), but instead, he clenched his fists, taking a deep breath. It was _cute_ , endearing, to see Lloyd taking this sort of thing as seriously as when he trained in swordplay. He needed to use his swords to survive, whereas this was an impulsive lark, but Lloyd had decided it was important. So, Zelos wasn’t particularly _surprised_ to see Lloyd give it his all, but Zelos was also weak and more than a little bit in love, and that meant he reserved the right to admire Lloyd’s resolve. And his wings. And his face.

That face was now growing frustrated again as he apparently tried a few more times, even getting his wings to _move,_ just not in a way that actually lifted him off the ground. “Ugh,” Lloyd grumbled, sitting down suddenly and dropping his chin onto a fist. “Why do wings have to be so _hard?_ I managed to do it before, at Derris Kharlan! But now it’s like…” His wings folded in towards his back and disappeared in an aqua spritz of light.

“Like?” Zelos echoed, sitting down across from him. Noishe had, by this point, tucked his ears back down and his head into his paws, clearly satisfied that Lloyd wasn’t actually in any danger.

Lloyd looked at him, eyes burning so brilliantly that Zelos almost had to look away. He didn’t dare. “It’s like before, I knew what I was supposed to do with them, y’know? I had these wings because there was somewhere I _had_ to reach, no matter what, and nothing was gonna stop me, so it didn’t matter if I didn’t get how they worked. I just had to fly.”

“So, what’s stopping you?” Zelos asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, I don’t have to anymore,” Lloyd said. “Everywhere we’re going these days, we can get there by walking or sailing or stuff like that.”

The words caused something to tighten inside Zelos’s chest that he realized was worry. Maybe mixed with disbelief. “You’re saying you can’t do it because there are easier ways to get around?” he said. “Who are you and what’ve you done with Lloyd?”

“I know!” Lloyd said, scrunching his face up. Noishe flicked his tail, almost hitting him, and Lloyd batted it away. “That’s why it’s so frustrating! But I don’t even remember what it felt like to fly now. Colette said maybe it was because of adrenaline or something…”

“What it _feels_ like…to fly?” Zelos leaned back onto his hands and stared up. What it felt like… 

He thought the right answer was something like _freeing_ or _wonderful_ or _weightless_ , but those words rang hollow in his chest. No, Zelos’s wings had been more like a beautifully gilded chain than a symbol of freedom. No matter how high or far he could go with them, he’d never been able to escape what it meant to be the Chosen. Colette had once confided that her wings were much the same. They were beautiful, wondrous, and gave her the ability to go anywhere, and all it cost was their humanity.

But Colette didn’t feel that way anymore. And if Zelos was honest with himself ( _funny,_ he thought, _for that to be possible_ ), he wasn’t so sure he did either. He wasn’t special, anymore, and in breaking those chains of his destiny, the wings, too, had become something else.

“Y’know, I’m not so sure either,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to see his own wings had appeared in response to his thoughts. Zelos looked back to Lloyd, blue eyes sparkling with an idea, and he held out a hand. “Want to find out?”

Lloyd blinked, lips falling open for a second, before he grinned and put his hand in Zelos’s. “Let’s do it,” he said. “Be right back, Noishe.”

Zelos wasn’t sure if the absolute certainty in Lloyd’s voice was due to the fact that he had no idea how hard it was to carry someone while flying or because he was just _that_ sure that Zelos could hold him. Either way, Zelos got to his feet (still holding Lloyd’s hand) and waited for Lloyd to follow him as Noishe made some kind of vaguely affirmative-sounding whine.

And Zelos hesitated. In the same way that if he thought too hard about the fact that he was breathing, it would stop being automatic, the mechanics of flying suddenly seemed unfamiliar and out of reach. His grip on Lloyd’s hand tightened without thinking. “Zelos?” Lloyd asked, cocking his head slightly. His eyes met Zelos’s, and there was worry there, but not doubt. Not fear.

A weight that Zelos hadn’t felt except in its absence lifted from him, and he felt his wings flutter in response. No, he could do this.

He let a smirk cross his face, and moving his wings was, like it should be, as easy as breathing. His feet lifted maybe a foot off the ground, enough that Lloyd had to reach up to keep hold of him, and Zelos tried to focus on the warmth of Lloyd’s hand through his gloves rather than the rather terrifying thought that he didn’t really know _how_ he was doing this anymore. If he thought too hard and came up empty, he was sure he would fall.

From the way Lloyd was watching him, Zelos didn’t think he’d noticed anything off, so he moved closer, still hovering above the grass. “What?” Lloyd asked.

“Did you think I was going to pull you around by one hand?” Zelos asked, almost laughing. “Nah. If you want me to carry you, I’m actually gonna have to _carry_ you.”

The blush that appeared on Lloyd’s cheeks was _priceless_. And cute. But Zelos didn’t say that. Instead, he just reached forward and hooked his arms under Lloyd’s. “Hang on tight, hunny,” he said, voice low and trying _far_ too hard to be taken seriously by someone who knew him like Lloyd did.

Lloyd still spluttered, flustered as ever, but he did wrap his arms around Zelos in return as he rambled about Zelos being insufferable and ridiculous and _,_ “Who _exactly_ is supposed to be your _hunny_ , you jerk—”

Laughing, Zelos lifted him, wings moving audible waves of air to pull both of them up. It took simultaneously more and less effort than he expected—more because Lloyd wasn’t a _large_ person, but his muscles made him heavier than he looked; less because…well, because his wings had never felt this powerful before. The movement was still kind of sudden for Lloyd, apparently, because his arms tightened, pulling him close against Zelos until there was no space between them in the air.

They were maybe five, six feet up when Zelos felt Lloyd place his head on Zelos’s shoulder and inhale as though he hadn’t properly breathed for years. “Woah…” he said, and his voice reverberated through Zelos’s chest as he pulled them higher, Noishe growing smaller on the ground below them. Then, Lloyd pulled back to look at him, and said again, in the _same_ voice, “Woah,” before glancing around again.

Zelos’s heart pounded. “See something you like?” It was meant to be teasing but ended up being completely genuine. Not terribly long ago, Zelos would have been mortified, probably would have blamed it on the altitude making his head fuzzy (even though they _really_ weren’t that high), but. Well. This was Lloyd, after all.

“Ahh, this is _incredible!_ ” Lloyd said, almost as though Zelos hadn’t spoken at all. “I didn’t know we were this close to the ocean! And the monsters in the distance look so small.” Zelos had seen Lloyd excited before, and yet, this put it to shame. The pure, gleeful awe radiating from Lloyd was so brilliant that Zelos wondered, if Tethe’alla were still in the sky above them, could someone standing there see this light?

He thought it was possible.

Absently, Zelos was aware that his biceps were beginning to ache from supporting them both, but he ignored it. A little strain was _worth_ it, being able to fly like this, holding the person who had held him up for so damn long, bring Lloyd a little closer to his dream in turn. He moved them a little higher and in the direction of the coast. The wind danced through his hair, causing a lock of it to fly between them and smack Lloyd in the face.

Lloyd’s eyes went wide as he huffed to try and get the red strands off of his cheek, and Zelos laughed and laughed and _laughed_. His instinct to curl into himself as he did so just pulled Lloyd closer, and the joy in his chest grew until it was so light that Zelos wasn’t sure his _wings_ were keeping them up anymore. The taste of salt on his tongue from the sea air wasn’t tear-bitter, he found, but unbearably sweet.

 _Oh,_ he thought, s _o this is what it feels like to fly._

When he opened his eyes, Lloyd was looking at him in that way he sometimes used to when he’d accidentally found his way past another of Zelos’s walls. Like he had discovered something valuable in a place he thought he already knew. 

It wasn’t so hard to accept anymore, and Zelos gave a shrug, lifting Lloyd slightly in the process. “Well?” he asked. “Did you figure it out? ‘Cause—” _I did_ “—as much as I love giving you the Great Zelos’s Tour of the skies around here, I’m gonna have to land eventually.”

“Uh—” Lloyd cleared his throat, cheeks turning pink again. Now, that was interesting. It wasn’t like Zelos had said anything intentionally provocative, but Lloyd still…

Well. Maybe, someday soon, Zelos dared to hope that he would be able to act on the impulse to kiss that blush. Only for a second.

“You’re amazing. It’s amazing,” Lloyd said. “I still dunno how to move my wings to make them do this, but there’s _no way_ this is anything like walking. Or sailing.”

“Definitely not,” Zelos said. “Come on! Try it.”

Lloyd wet his lips and nodded with a bright, determined, “Right. Here goes!” His wings had appeared even before he finished speaking, and his eyes closed, squeezing shut in concentration.

Zelos watched the translucent feathers, shimmering in waves of blue and green, starting to shift slightly. The movement wasn’t enough, but it was more than Lloyd had been able to manage the day before already. Lloyd opened his eyes again, looking over Zelos’s shoulder at the ocean. Then back to Zelos. He saw the moment something clicked.

Lloyd’s wings beat once, twice, and then Zelos wasn’t holding him anymore. Or, rather, Zelos wasn’t holding him _up_. Lloyd was in his arms, but his weight wasn’t, and a smile broke across his face. “Hah!” he cried out, letting go of Zelos’s back and holding his arms instead. “I did it!”

“Sure did— _ah!_ ”

Zelos was pushed backwards as Lloyd, emboldened by his success at holding himself up, put more strength into the next beat of his wings. The angle of it did send Lloyd flying upwards, but in his shock, Zelos had let go and was pushed down. For a second, he was weightless, just falling as he watched Lloyd soar up above him with a proud grin. He let the momentum push him into a flip and caught himself just as his boots skimmed the top of a wave.

“Zelos!” he heard from above him, noting that Lloyd was dropping down to meet him, concern lacing the syllables of his name.

Zelos just laughed, lifting himself a little farther away from the water and putting his hands on his hips. “I’m fine, bud,” he called back. “You’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that to get rid of me.”

Maybe a year ago—even half that—the joke would have hurt despite his smile. But now…well, it still felt dangerous, or rough, maybe, like sandpaper. But it didn’t cut into him. Zelos knew, in the same way he knew his name or how to wield his smile or—he chuckled—how to fly, he _knew_ that Lloyd wasn’t going to leave him alone. Not because he had to stay, not _in spite_ of the fact that he could literally go almost anywhere with his wings—

Lloyd would stay because he could, and because he wanted to.

Zelos could have flown back up to meet Lloyd in the middle, but it wasn’t like they were going to lose each other up here. “You think Noishe is mad at us for leaving yet?” he asked, staying low to the ground as he made his way back to the road.

Based on the way Lloyd suddenly seemed to choke, Zelos guessed that the exhilaration from flying had, in fact, made Lloyd forget about the fact that Noishe could not join them in the sky. It was understandable, he thought, though he was also _fairly_ sure that Lloyd might get knocked over when they got back. Or maybe he’d be able to avoid it now that he could fly. Zelos certainly felt light enough to dodge just about anything.


End file.
